1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a ceramic electronic component.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the recent reduction in size and thickness of electronic devices, such as mobile phones and portable music players, wiring boards mounted in the electronic devices have become increasingly compact. Accordingly, ceramic electronic components mounted on the wiring boards have also become smaller and thinner.
In the related art, ceramic electronic components including rectangular-parallelepiped ceramic bodies have a relatively high mechanical strength, whereas ceramic electronic components including thin flat ceramic bodies have a low mechanical strength. Furthermore, the mechanical strength of the ceramic electronic components tends to decrease as the thickness of the ceramic bodies decreases. Therefore, it is difficult to increase the mechanical strength of a ceramic electronic component having a flat ceramic body.
Examples of a method for increasing the mechanical strength of a ceramic electronic component include a method for forming reinforcement conductor layers (buffer layers) in a ceramic body, as described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-26295.
However, even reinforcement conductor layers provided in a ceramic body may not sufficiently prevent occurrences of cracks in a ceramic electronic component. Therefore, it may still be difficult to sufficiently improve the mechanical durability of the ceramic electronic component.